Inter-Planetary Modeling: Our Solar System Simulation

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around a project simulating the solar system, focusing on the modeling of inter-planetary actions and the challenges faced during the simulation. Participants share experiences, observations, and technical details related to the simulation's performance and accuracy.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Technical explanation
  • Conceptual clarification
  • Debate/contested

Main Points Raised

  • One participant describes their project, which simulates the solar system using a constant force assumption and an algorithm that advances the system over time, noting it tends to overestimate results.
  • Another participant reports an issue where a planet appears to have "shot out of space," expressing uncertainty about the behavior of Mercury and the overall simulation's long-term accuracy.
  • A participant attributes the inaccuracies in the simulation to the necessity of increasing the time-step to achieve a reasonable simulation speed, specifically mentioning the need for 10 simulated years per second to visualize Pluto's movement effectively.
  • One participant expresses surprise at Pluto's elliptical and tilted orbit compared to the other planets, indicating a lack of prior knowledge about its orbital characteristics.
  • Another participant shares positive feedback about their project's grading, highlighting a bonus received for contacting NASA and mentioning a critique regarding the absence of solar flares in the simulation.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants express a mix of observations and challenges without reaching a consensus on the simulation's accuracy or the specific reasons for the observed anomalies. The discussion remains unresolved regarding the long-term behavior of the planets in the simulation.

Contextual Notes

Limitations include potential inaccuracies due to the chosen time-step and assumptions made in the modeling process, as well as the lack of certain features like solar flares in the simulation.

Alkatran
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We had a project in PHYC 2050 to write an applet simulating a scientific model. Me and my partner chose the solar system, which was a step up from the other projects (ideal gas law, refraction :biggrin: ).

We took into account inter-planetary actions and used a simple "assume force is contant for time t and advance the system" algorithm. It appears to overestimate on average, but it had the best usefulness to "we can do this" ratio.

In any case, check it out at:
myweb.dal.ca/cr376499

The 2d version is the project we submitted and the 3d version is just me wanting to make it 3d. It already did all the z coordinate calculations so it was just a matter of drawing them.

Special thanks goes to tony873004 (from here) who told me about the JPL horizons system so we could get our hands on the position and velocities of planets.
 
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One of the planets shot out of space!

Here is an image:

http://img447.imageshack.us/img447/6930/planetgone7jx.th.png

I don't know if mercury is coming back :cry:

http://img75.imageshack.us/img75/1850/mercurycomingback3li.png

No more problems with the moon
And years are now a lot longer! :smile:

http://img293.imageshack.us/img293/1102/nomoremoonprobs4al.th.png
The program stopped at 14129 years and 308 days :cry:

I am not sure what happened with some of the planets in long periods of time, but the program is still pretty cool! :approve:
 
Last edited by a moderator:
That's because of the inaccuracy involved when the time-step has to be increased to go at 10 simulated years per second. The only reason I let it go that high is because you need 10 yr/s to see pluto move at a decent pace.
 
The thing that surprised me the most after making this was the fact that pluto was so out-of-wack with the other planets. I knew that it had a more elliptical path that sent it closer and further than uranus, but had no idea it was tilted.

http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/4514/solarsys0us.th.png
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Good news! We got 99% on the project, including a "1% bonus for contacting NASA" haha. The main criticism was "where are the solar flares on the sun?" :rolleyes:
 

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